Ladies Can't Climb Ladders Early Adventures of Working Women, the Professional Life and the Glass Ceiling

It is a myth that either of the World Wars liberated women.

The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act of 1919 was one of the most significant pieces of legislation in modern Britain. it marked at once political watershed and a social revolution; the point at which women of 21 and over were recognised in law as being as competent as men. But were they? What actually happened when this bill was passed? This is the story of what happened next.

The Professional Woman focuses on the lives of six women - six pioneers - forging pathsin the fields of medicine, law, academia, architecture, engineering and the church. Robinson's startling study into the public and private lives of these women sheds light not on the desires and ambitions of of her subjects but how family and society responded to the working woman and what their legacy looks like today.

This book is written in their honour. It is a book about live subjects: equal opportunity, the gender pay gap, and whether women can expect, or indeed deserve, to have it at all.
 

Jane Robinson is also the author of Hearts and Minds and Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education. She went to Oxford University to study English Language and Literature at Somerville College. She has worked in the antiquarian book trade and as an archivist and is now a full-time writer and lecturer, specializing in social history through women's eyes. She is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, member of the Society of Authors, and founder member of Writers in Oxford.